Chapter 34: Home (Part 2) Update
This does not mean that she does not intend to rely on Jin Jie.
Even when he saw him complete such a task impeccably and lead the team back to the Marquis' Mansion, Liu Ziye was extremely clear about this person's value to him.
In order to obtain more points according to the existing rules of the system, she needs a lot of people.
Du Hui, housekeeper Liu Biao and others can gain her highest trust, but those old people who are not from the Xiguan Palace are also those she must not ignore and must recruit as many as possible to serve her.
Jin Jie was the first one who appeared by his side at the right time and demonstrated his abilities time and time again.
Even this time, he showed his loyalty to himself.
If possible, if he was trustworthy, she hoped she could make him one of her confidants without having to be too cautious.
And for this, it is far from enough to just show off muscles as before.
This time, it can be said to be a test for her.
The test of Jin Jie was a further screening and training of the people who remained in the Marquis' Mansion.
It would be great if these boxes of gold and silver could be recovered, but she also expected that they could not be recovered.
Now, they were able to come back like this, which meant they had passed her test.
The former private guards of the Marquis' Mansion were shabby and disorganized.
When Chi Mu and his guards stormed into the Marquis' mansion, Liu Ziye clearly saw their inherent inferiority complex. The vast gap between them and the imperial guards, like a chasm, had a profound psychological impact on these "unskilled" private guards.
If you want to improve this team, the first thing to do is not to upgrade their weapons or give them a set of awesome equipment.
But——
He truly stood up in front of Chi Mu's guards.
In her opinion, the person standing in front of her yesterday was the prototype of her ideal private security.
In the quiet room, facing Liu Ziye's direct questioning, Jin Jie's face, which had remained expressionless for thousands of years, showed a hint of surprise.
It seemed that he had not expected to be asked such a question.
He paused for a moment before saying, "I haven't thought about this question."
Liu Ziye pressed on, "How is that possible? I asked you to risk your life! What you brought back were eight boxes full of gold and silver. No matter where you took them, it would be enough for you to live a comfortable and prosperous life as ordinary people."
She thought to herself, if there was such an opportunity in front of her, if there was no dog system restraining her.
Then she would never let it slip away like that.
"Maybe."
After listening to Liu Ziye's words, Jin Jie still seemed to find nothing attractive about the scene she described.
He continued indifferently, "Although I have only been in the Xiguan Marquisate for a short time, I don't have a specific idea of what a rich and comfortable life is. If I were to say stable, my current life is a stable one for me."
Liu Ziye was a little curious and asked, "What is it about the Marquis' Mansion that attracts you?"
Jin Jie: "Not when I first arrived. But perhaps after I took the young marquis to travel all over the two cities and thirteen towns of Xiguan, the Xiguan Marquisate became a place where I could settle down safely."
He did not provide further explanation.
But Liu Ziye understood the hidden meaning behind his words, the words he had not spoken yet -
“During that trip, I saw a different Xiguan Hou than what others saw.
Others say you stumbled upon it by mistake, but I know you had it planned all along."
To put it more bluntly.
Jin Jie began to regard this place as his home and his master, and was willing to accept her life-threatening missions and assignments, all because of her, Liu Ziye.
Liu Ziye turned away his gaze that had been staring at the other person, trying to explore the matter.
She understood the meaning of Jin Jie's words. Instead of feeling happy about being sworn in to her face, her face darkened.
After a moment of silence, he said calmly, "You can go out."
"yes."
Jin Jie responded, stood up and walked out slowly.
As the sound of the door closing rang out, Jin Jie's hard-to-ignore, heavy and steady footsteps outside the study door gradually faded away.
The room with the thick charcoal fire in winter seemed too warm.
Liu Ziye suspected that a thin layer of sweat had already formed on his body.
Originally, before calling Jin Jie over, she just needed to make one final test on this person, and she was also curious.
She stood up and turned off the fire in the study, then opened a corner window to let in some air, and the feeling of heat was slightly suppressed.
In his previous life, Liu Ziye's habit had always been to lock himself up to study and read when he was in a bad mood; when he was suffering from illness, he would lock himself up and read the textbooks, reference books issued by the school and the limited books in the welfare home over and over again, swallowing every word.
When a new adoptive parent appeared in the orphanage and other healthy children were called to meet the adoptive parent, Liu Ziye was in his small room, silently calculating physics and mathematics problems over and over again.
She did all the questions in the textbook and exercise book over and over again.
Gradually, she could set questions for herself and then calculate the solutions by herself.
It was the only way she could get along with herself.
After arriving in this world, this study room, which was avoided by the original owner like the plague, once again became her own private place.
Although the former Xiguan Palace was in decline, the King of Xiguan was obviously a man who loved reading and was diligent in his work.
Liu Ziye has now walked through the entire former royal palace. As she saw, except for the hall where she currently lived, which was the only place in the mansion with the best furnishings and utensils, the most exquisite place was the study.
The study is neither big nor small, but the layout is very reasonable and comfortable.
There is a partition between the inner study and the outer door of the study. A tea table is arranged on the partition, which can be used for people to wait outside and for personal guards or servants to guard inside.
Normally, the door outside the study is always open.
In the outer room of the study, Xiying was squatting on a chair, watching Liu Ziye who was working in the inner room of the study.
Although it was winter and a thick cotton curtain was hung on the outer door, Xiying still lifted up one of the curtains to make it easier to observe who was coming outside in time.
Both the young marquis and Mr. Du said that after this winter, they would choose another one from the current private guards to be the young marquis's personal guard, and then he would have someone to take over the shift.
However, when he thought of his personal guard Asahi, who grew up with him, and Yui, who was always in a good mood, he couldn't help but sigh.
The sounds of birds and animals gradually rose outside the window.
After the window was opened, the cold wind brought the fresh air after the snow, bringing a cool feeling to his face and dispelling Liu Ziye's vague unhappiness.
She sat down at the desk skillfully and took out a map book, a humanities book and a book she had customized from the locked box.
Except for necessary rest, she will not let any available time slip away from her.
She was like this in her previous life, and every moment of her life in this life was earned by consuming the points she had worked so hard to earn. For Liu Ziye, there would be no so-called leisure time anymore.
She first calculated her remaining points and the latest unlocking changes in the system.
Because she has been assessed by the system as having initially resolved the crisis of the winter snow disaster in the fiefdom, after the system issued points, it also prompted that the system had completed an upgrade.
However, the specific upgraded functions and redeemable items were not shown to Liu Ziye one by one.
"What a shit system."
Liu Ziye couldn't help but curse.
She had already exhausted her patience with the system she was bound to, and was too lazy to even put in a superficial act.
system:"……"
It whirred for a moment, as if hesitating to say something: "Host..."
Liu Ziye interrupted him mercilessly: "If you still have some meaningless nonsense to say, please shut up and leave. I don't have time to listen to your rambling."
system:"……"
It analyzed what it wanted to say, emphasized to the host once again how super invincible it was, and evaluated the meaning of Liu Ziye's "useless nonsense".
The conclusion is that the host's nonsense should include what he wants to say, so he can only say aggrievedly: "Okay, then, I will take my leave."
Liu Ziye sneered.
He is useless in other aspects and knows nothing when asked, but he has not forgotten his simulated identity.
She took out the new farming and textile drawings that she had unlocked and redeemed with points, and combined them with the previous book "Elementary Mechanics" and some drawings from "Kaogong Ji" and "Qimin Yaoshu".
As I've done before, I tried hand-drawing the design and disassembling the parts.
Liu Ziye looked at these things. Time waits for no one. She needs to start arranging the next round of mechanical equipment and various preparations for spring plowing after the beginning of next spring as soon as Xiguan County recovers from the heavy snow.
Open the geographical and geological map left by King Xiguan.
What Liu Ziye can confirm is that, whether it is Yucheng, Qingcheng or the Thirteen Towns, the area of land currently cultivated by the people of Xiguan County is actually very small.
Of course, Xiguan is not a fertile land. Apart from the small plains occupied by Qingcheng and Yucheng, there are not many decent plots of land. Most of them are large tracts of mountains, forests, sand and gravel, and saline land.
Even these plots of land are often blocked by mountains, rivers, lakes or canyons, making it difficult to connect with each other.
This rare heavy snowfall meant that there was no need to worry about land irrigation after the spring snowmelt. Liu Ziye could expand her mission points in two directions:
The first is to expand the cultivated land area, and the second is to increase the yield per mu of land.
She also wanted to get some high-yield crop seeds that were not available in this world, but unfortunately this useless system did not have them, and she could not cultivate them out of thin air!
All she could do was to maximize the effectiveness of the items she exchanged with her life points.
Time passed minute by minute. After Liu Ziye finished all these calculations, she began to combine the knowledge she learned in high school physics and mathematics with the mechanical drawings provided by the system to digest and understand the efficiency principles and mechanical formulas behind each machine.
In addition, this study of the King of Xiguan also contains many books that the royal scholars of this dynasty need to read.
To survive in this era, we must understand the thoughts and knowledge of this era.
Liu Ziye asked Du Hui to make a list of books for her, and planned to include the books on the list as one of her study items.
When necessary, Du Hui would be invited to give her lectures.
For the entire morning, Liu Ziye spent the entire time alone in the study, except for calling Xiying once to add water and charcoal.
It was not until lunchtime that Liu Ziye stood up from his desk, put on his outer clothes and walked out.
Xiying, who was guarding the outer room, had her eyes light up: "Young Marquis, you're out!"
Ah Huan had come here to guard the place at some point, and when he saw Liu Ziye, he immediately asked her, "Young Marquis, lunch is ready. Would you like me to have someone bring it here?"
Liu Ziye had been sitting for the entire morning and now felt like walking around a bit, so he said, "No need, let's just put it in the hall."
This study is not too close to the courtyard where she lives, so it is just right for her to refresh herself.
"yes."
Ah Huan responded, bowed, turned around and quickly went back to the yard to prepare.
Although Liu Ziye had been studying indoors for the entire morning, she was already familiar with this model.
In her previous life, when she was preparing for the college entrance examination, the kind of high-intensity study from the moment she opened her eyes to the moment she closed them every day was completely different from the situation today. She had internalized efficient and concentrated study and timely and appropriate relaxation into her body's reaction chain.
At this time, her mind was not dizzy and her eyes were still sharp.
Therefore, she also clearly caught the brief glance that Ah Huan cast at Xiying before leaving.
Walking on the path leading to the hall where Liu Ziye was, Xiying changed her usual talkative and active self and followed Liu Ziye obediently.
Liu Ziye clearly felt that he tried to muster up the courage to speak several times, but finally held it back.
After repeating this several times, Liu Ziye stopped when he reached the front door of the courtyard porch.
Sure enough, Xiying seemed to have lost her soul and bumped into me without even looking.
She dodged lightly, then knocked Xiying on the forehead: "What are you doing?"
Xiying was startled by the knock and realized that she had almost bumped into the young marquis. She hurriedly apologized: "I'm sorry, young marquis! Xiying was confused for a moment. Please punish me, young marquis!"
Liu Ziye looked at him and said, "If you have something to say, please hurry up and say it."
After she arrived at the Marquis' Mansion, Xiying was one of the people she saw through the fastest. He was a simple-minded person and couldn't keep things to himself. If he continued to follow Liu Ziye around with his worries, he would sooner or later become annoyed.
“Ah? This…this…”
Xiying obviously didn't expect that the young marquis had already seen that she was holding back something, and when she was asked so directly, she didn't know how to start for a moment.
Liu Ziye frowned: "If you don't tell me, and keep it in your heart and look absent-minded all day long, I think you don't need to follow me from now on."
“No no!”
When Xiying heard that Liu Ziye didn't want her to be his personal guard, she immediately came to her senses and confessed: "I just want to ask the young marquis for something."
Liu Ziye looked at him and motioned him to continue speaking quickly.
Xiying said with a dejected look on her face, "It's about Chaozhao. He's been locked up in the Marquis' Mansion for over a month since Eunuch Liu's death. He and I grew up together with the Marquis. A few days ago, I went to visit him out of our past friendship, and he begged me at the time, saying he wanted to meet you, the young Marquis. Although we grew up together and are brothers, he was the first one to stand up and betray our Mansion and join that damn eunuch. After that incident, I, Xiying, no longer consider him a brother, nor do I recognize him as a member of our Mansion! It's just... it's just..."
"But you couldn't bear his earnest request, right?" Liu Ziye asked.
"Yes..." Xiying admitted dejectedly.
"Alright. Considering he has been with me since he was a child, it's just a one-time meeting. This Marquis agrees."
Liu Ziye waved his hand and turned into the courtyard first.
Xiying followed behind him, thanking him repeatedly with an apologetic tone.
Liu Ziye turned his head and said to him, "However, what I said just now was not just a casual remark. If you can't even pretend to be so careful and keep making mistakes, then you don't need to continue to follow me as a personal guard."
Although Xiying is simple-minded and loyal to both the original owner and her, Liu Ziye came here to work for a living and has neither the time nor the energy to take care of a child.
She couldn't let go of someone so close to her, who was a time bomb that could make mistakes or explode at any time.
She said this after careful consideration.
For her, the current Xiying is not qualified to be a personal guard.
This sentence was like a blow to the head, shaking Xiying's whole body.
He stopped where he was, staring blankly at the young marquis's resolute back as he said this and no longer even glanced at him.
Xiying realized that the young marquis was probably serious.
He could no longer care about his messy thoughts, and like a child who was suddenly criticized, afraid of being punished and losing his beloved baby, he solemnly promised: "I understand, young marquis, Xiying will definitely, definitely change!"
Liu Ziye, who was walking in front, did not respond to Xiying's words.
How could she trust a child's assurance?
What she wants to see is actual action.
She entered the main hall where the meal was served. Ah Huan had already carefully arranged the meal according to her new habit of recent days. She sat down to eat calmly, no longer paying attention to the interaction between the maid and the guard in the room.
When Ah Huan saw Xiying coming in, he was also stunned by her anxious look, like an eggplant hit by frost.
She didn't know what had happened between Xiying and the young marquis just now, but she thought that things must have gone wrong, and not just ordinary wrongs.
She had seen Xiying many times when she was worried or in a bad mood, but this was the first time she saw Xiying so anxious and worried.
The young marquis was right in front of them, and neither she nor Xiying could leave without permission.
He could only serve Liu Ziye's meal anxiously and without saying a word.
Liu Ziye's eating habits have always been very fixed. She eats as much as is set out for her. She ate carefully and took the mouthwash and handkerchief handed to her by Ah Huan to wash herself.
She glanced at Xiying, who had been standing nearby silently the entire time, and said, "Let's go. Take me to where Chaozhao is being held. Notify Jin Jie and bring two people with you."
Xiying was now concentrating on what Liu Ziye said. She didn't dare to be vague at all and immediately straightened her upper body and said, "Yes!"
Ah Huan was shocked when he heard this.
Seeing Xiying's expression, she thought the matter was over. Although the young marquis's temperament was different now, he was not a particularly easy-going master. However, she did not expect that the young marquis would agree.
Liu Ziye seemed to sense her surprise and said, "Ah Huan, you come along too. I'll leave this place to Ah Bi to clean up first."
Ah Huan, who was hanging the handkerchief, paused for a moment, then nodded: "Yes."
The place where Chaozhao and others were imprisoned was not far from the row of earthen-walled warehouses where Fu Zhener was imprisoned last time.
The steward Liu Biao also heard about this very quickly and rushed over with the keys. He didn't mean to stop Liu Ziye, but he was relieved that the young marquis had remembered these people and wanted to deal with them personally.
After all, it is not right to keep it locked up like this without any attention.
These people have committed treason, and as a steward, he is not qualified to deal with them on behalf of Liu Ziye.
Recently, Liu Biao has changed his old habit of giving the young marquis all kinds of advice and advice as soon as he meets him.
He looked at their young marquis, whose appearance had truly changed, with a heart and eyes filled with relief and joy. "Young marquis, without your prior instructions, I have temporarily imprisoned Chaozhao and the others here, following your instructions. They have never lacked food or water during these days."
Liu Ziye nodded and asked the housekeeper, "Which room is Chaozhao imprisoned in?"
Liu Biao immediately pointed and said, "The morning light shines in this room."
This row of houses all have an earthen window, which, although temporarily used to lock people in, is not completely sealed.
Chaozhao had obviously heard the noise outside. He tried to look out through the gap in the window panel, and when he found that it was the young marquis who came, he was overjoyed.
Through the window, tears streaming down her face, she cried out, "Young Prince! Master! You're finally here!"
Liu Ziye glanced at him and didn't respond.
But for Chao Zhao, who had been imprisoned here for more than a month and no one had ever asked about him, Liu Ziye's willingness to come had already given him great hope.
Even though the young marquis ignored him, he had done this many times before. How could he possibly care at this moment?
He continued to babble about some confusing and grateful words. Xiying had just experienced a heavy blow she had never experienced before. Seeing Chaozhao's miserable appearance, she felt even worse for a moment and could not help but turn her head away and stopped looking.
Ah Huan said nothing.
She quietly watched the morning star, who was once so familiar yet suddenly so strange. She also felt sad, but she did not look away like the evening star.
After all, Chaozhao and the others were once old members of the palace. After they were locked in the room, their hands and feet were not further tied to restrict their movements.
Liu Ziye stopped the butler Liu Biao who was about to go forward to unlock the door himself, and signaled Jin Jie to take over.
Jin Jie had received Xiying's notification and had brought two private guards with him. He stepped forward and took the key from Liu Biao: "I'll be there."
This was the reason why Liu Ziye asked him to bring people with him. After Jin Jie brought people to open the door and go in to watch over Chao Zhao and temporarily restrict his movements, Liu Ziye stepped in.
"Tell me what you want to see me about."
She felt both unfamiliar and familiar with the personal guard in front of her named Chao Zhao.
What is familiar is that this person, like Xiying, Ahuan and Abi, appears frequently and intensively in the original owner's memories from childhood to adulthood.
What was strange was that this was the first time she had faced this person directly since she had traveled through time.
Chao Zhao was temporarily tied to a chair, speaking directly to Liu Ziye. This was the first time he had seen Liu Ziye in his present form since the day the young marquis suddenly woke up, Eunuch Liu was killed, and Pan Yi retreated.
He didn't know how Liu Ziye had changed during this period, but he clearly remembered the past between him and his former master, the young prince. He also remembered deeply that day when the young prince woke up and cut the throat of eunuch Liu with a sword, and the blood splattered all over the ground.
The young master had a bad temper to begin with. As a personal guard who had been following him since he was a child, he would often be mercilessly beaten and scolded.
If he once hated the young marquis, now he is filled with fear after betraying such a person.
The ecstasy he felt when he first saw the young marquis passed, and Zhao Zhao realized that his teeth were chattering. He said tremblingly, "Young marquis, marquis, Zhao Zhao is sorry. It was Zhao Zhao who betrayed you when the marquis's mansion was in the most critical moment. Zhao Zhao is sorry to Prince Xiguan, I'm sorry..."
"Okay, I don't want to hear your confession." Liu Ziye interrupted impatiently.
Her annoyance was very direct and overwhelming, as if it was about to burst out of her chest.
Why is this happening?
Liu Ziye also asked himself this question in his heart.
In fact, if you think about it from another angle, the entire Xiguan Palace was indeed on the verge of being wiped out by Eunuch Liu. As an ordinary person, it was not difficult for her to understand that not everyone could give up their lives and face death so resolutely.
Take myself for example, I am doing this in a despicable way now, isn't it just to gain a few more moments of life?
But she couldn't control the aversion towards Chao Zhao that came from nowhere, and her words were extremely cold.
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